Mr. President, it is a year
ago this month that the late President Kennedy sent his civil rights
bill and message to the Congress. For two years, we had been chiding him
about failure to act in this field. At long last, and after many
conferences, it became a reality.

After nine days of hearings
before the Senate Judiciary Committee, it was referred to a
subcommittee. There it languished and the administration leadership
finally decided to await the House bill.

In the House it traveled an
equally tortuous road. But at long last, it reached the House floor for
action. It was debated for 64 hours; 155 amendments were offered; 34
were approved. On February 10, 1964, it passed the House by a vote of
290 to 130. That was a 65-percent vote.

It was messaged to the
Senate on February 17 and reached the Senate calendar on February 26.
The motion to take up and consider was made on March 9. That motion was
debated for sixteen days and on March 26 by a vote of 67 to 17 it was
adopted.

It is now 4 months since it
passed the House. It is 3½ months since it came to the Senate calendar.
Three months have gone by since the motion to consider was made. We have
acted on one intervening motion to send the bill back to the Judiciary
Committee and a vote on the jury trial amendment. That has been the
extent of our action.

Sharp opinions have
developed. Incredible allegations have been made. Extreme views have
been asserted. The mail volume has been heavy. The bill has provoked
many long-distance telephone calls, many of them late at night or in the
small hours of the morning. There has been unrestrained criticism about
motives. Thousands of people have come to the Capitol to urge immediate
action on an unchanged House bill.

For myself, I have had but
one purpose and that was the enactment of a good, workable, equitable,
practical bill having due regard for the progress made in the civil
rights field at the state and local level.

I am no Johnnie-come-lately
in this field. Thirty years ago, in the House of Representatives, I
voted on anti-poll tax and anti- lynching measures. Since then, I have
sponsored or cosponsored scores of bills dealing with civil rights.

At the outset, I contended
that the House bill was imperfect and deficient. That fact is now quite
generally conceded. But the debate continued. The number of amendments
submitted increased. They now number nearly four hundred. The stalemate
continued. A backlog of work piled up. Committees could not function
normally. It was an unhappy situation and it was becoming a bit
intolerable.

It became increasingly
evident that to secure passage of a bill in the Senate would require
cloture and a limitation on debate. Senate aversion to cloture is
traditional. Only once in thirty-five years has cloture been voted. But
the procedure for cloture is a standing rule of the Senate. It grew out
of a filibuster against the Armed Ship bill in 1917 and has been part of
the standing rules of the Senate for forty- seven years. To argue that
cloture is unwarranted or unjustified is to assert that in 1917, the
Senate adopted a rule which it did not intend to use when circumstances
required or that it was placed in the rulebook only as to be repudiated.
It was adopted as an instrument for action when all other efforts
failed.

Today the Senate is
stalemated in its efforts to enact a civil rights bill, one version of
which has already been approved by the House by a vote of more than 2 to
1. That the Senate wishes to act on a civil rights bill can be divined
from the fact that the motion to take up was adopted by a vote of 67 to
17.

Reasons for cloture on civil
rights There are many reasons why cloture should be invoked and a good
civil rights measure enacted.

First. It is said that on
the night he died, Victor Hugo wrote in his diary, substantially this
sentiment:

Stronger than all the
armies is an idea whose time has come.

The time has come for
equality of opportunity in sharing in government, in education, and in
employment. It will not be stayed or denied. It is here.

The problem began when the
Constitution makers permitted the importation of persons to continue for
another twenty years. That problem was to generate the fury of civil
strife seventy-five years later. Out of it was to come the Thirteenth
Amendment ending servitude, the Fourteenth Amendment to provide equal
protection of the laws and dual citizenship, the Fifteenth Amendment to
prohibit government from abridging the right to vote.

Other factors had an impact.
Two and three-quarter million young Negroes served in World Wars I, II,
and Korea. Some won the Congressional Medal of Honor and the
Distinguished Service Cross. Today they are fathers and grandfathers.
They brought back impressions from countries where no discrimination
existed. These impressions have been transmitted to children and
grandchildren. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of colored have become
teachers and professors, doctors and dentists, engineers and architects,
artists and actors, musicians and technicians. They have become status
minded. They have sensed inequality. They are prepared to make the
issue. They feel that the time has come for the idea of equal
opportunity. To enact the pending measure by invoking cloture is
imperative.

Years ago, a professor who
thought he had developed an uncontrovertible scientific premise
submitted it to his faculty associates. Quickly they picked it apart. In
agony he cried out, "Is nothing eternal?" To this one of his associates
replied, "Nothing is eternal except change."

Since the act of 1875 on
public accommodations and the Supreme Court decision of 1883 which
struck it down, America has changed. The population then was 45 million.
Today it is 190 million. In the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag we
intone, "One nation, under God." And so it is. It is an integrated
nation. Air, rail, and highway transportation make it so. A common
language makes it so. A tax pattern which applies equally to white and
nonwhite makes it so. Literacy makes it so. The mobility provided by
eighty million autos makes it so. The accommodations laws in thirty-four
states and the District of Columbia makes it so. The fair employment
practice laws in thirty states make it so. Yes, our land has changed
since the Supreme Court decision of 1883.

As Lincoln once observed:

The occasion is piled
high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion. As our case
is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must first
disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save the Union.

To my friends from the
South, I would refresh you on the words of a great Georgian named Henry
W. Grady. On December 22, 1886, he was asked to respond to a toast to
the new South at the New England society dinner. His words were dramatic
and explosive. He began his toast by saying:

There was a South of
slavery and secession -- that South is dead. There is a South of union
and freedom -- that South thank God is living, breathing, growing
every hour.

America grows. America
changes. And on the civil rights issue we must rise with the occasion.
That calls for cloture and for the enactment of a civil rights bill.

Third. There is another
reason -- our covenant with the people. For many years, each political
party has given major consideration to a civil rights plank in its
platform. Go back and reexamine our pledges to the country as we sought
the suffrage of the people and for a grant of authority to manage and
direct their affairs. Were these pledges so much campaign stuff or did
we mean it? Were these promises on civil rights but idle words for
vote-getting purposes or were they a covenant meant to be kept? If all
this was mere pretense, let us confess the sin of hypocrisy now and vow
not to delude the people again.

To you, my Republican
colleagues, let me refresh you on the words of a great American. His
name is Herbert Hoover. In his day he was reviled and maligned. He was
castigated and calumniated. But today his views and his judgment stand
vindicated at the bar of history. In 1952 he received a volcanic welcome
as he appeared before our national convention in Chicago. On that
occasion he commented on the Whig party, predecessor of the Republican
party, and said:

The Whig party
temporized, compromised upon the issue of freedom for the Negro.
That party disappeared. It deserved to disappear. Shall the
Republican party receive or deserve any better fate if it
compromises upon the issue of freedom for all men?

To those who have charged me
with doing a disservice to my party because of my interest in the
enactment of a good civil rights bill -- and there have been a good many
who have made that charge -- I can only say that our party found its
faith in the Declaration of Independence in which a great Democrat,
Jefferson by name, wrote the flaming words:

We hold these truths
to be self-evident that all men are created equal.

That has been the living
faith of our party. Do we forsake this article of faith, now that
equality's time has come or do we stand up for it and insure the
survival of our party and its ultimate victory. There is no substitute
for a basic and righteous idea. We have a duty -- a firm duty -- to use the
instruments at hand -- namely, the cloture rule -- to bring about the
enactment of a good civil rights bill.

Fourth. There is another
reason why we dare not temporize with the issue which is before us. It
is essentially moral in character. It must be resolved. It will not go
away. Its time has come. Nor is it the first time in our history that an
issue with moral connotations and implications has swept away the
resistance, the fulminations, the legalistic speeches, the ardent but
dubious arguments, the lamentations and the thought patterns of an
earlier generation and pushed forward to fruition.

More than sixty years ago
came the first efforts to secure federal pure food and drug legislation.
The speeches made on this floor against this intrusion of federal power
sound fantastically incredible today. But it would not be stayed. Its
time had come and since its enactment, it has been expanded and
strengthened in nearly every Congress.

When the first efforts were
made to ban the shipment of goods in interstate commerce made with child
labor, it was regarded as quite absurd. But all the trenchant
editorials, the bitter speeches, the noisy onslaughts were swept aside
as this limitation on the shipment of goods made with sweated child
labor moved on to fulfillment. Its time had come.

More than eighty years ago
came the first efforts to establish a civil service and merit system to
cover federal employees. The proposal was ridiculed and drenched with
sarcasm. Some of the sharpest attacks on the proposal were made on this
very Senate floor. But the bullet fired by a disappointed office seeker
in 1880 which took President Garfield's life was the instrument of
destiny which placed the Pendleton Act on the federal statute books in
1883. It was an idea whose time had come.

When the New York
legislature placed a limit of ten hours per day and six days per week
upon the bakery workers in that State, this act was struck down by the
U.S. Supreme Court. But in due time came the eight-hour day and the
forty-hour week and how broadly accepted this concept is today. Its time
had come.

More than sixty years ago,
the elder La Follette thundered against the election of U.S. senators by
the state legislatures. The cry was to get back to the people and to
first principles. On this Senate floor, senators sneered at his efforts
and even left the chamber to show their contempt. But fifty years ago,
the Constitution was amended to provide for the direct election of
senators. Its time had come.

Ninety-five years ago came
the first endeavor to remove the limitation on sex in the exercise of
the franchise. The comments made in those early days sound unbelievably
ludicrous. But on and on went the effort and became the Nineteenth
Amendment to the Constitution. Its time had come.

When the eminent Joseph
Choate appeared before the Supreme Court to assert that a federal income
tax statute was unconstitutional and communistic, the Court struck down
the work of Congress. Just twenty years later in 1913 the power of
Congress to lay and collect taxes on incomes became the Sixteenth
Amendment to the Constitution itself.

These are but some of the
things touching closely the affairs of the people which were met with
stout resistance, with shrill and strident cries of radicalism, with
strained legalisms, with anguished entreaties that the foundations of
the Republic were being rocked. But an inexorable moral force which
operates in the domain of human affairs swept these efforts aside and
today they are accepted as parts of the social, economic and political
fabric of America.

Pending before us is another
moral issue. Basically it deals with equality of opportunity in
exercising the franchise, in securing an education, in making a
livelihood, in enjoying the mantle of protection of the law. It has been
a long, hard furrow and each generation must plow its share. Progress
was made in 1957 and 1960. But the furrow does not end there. It
requires the implementation provided by the substitute measure which is
before us. And to secure that implementation requires cloture.

Let me add one thought to
these observations. Today is an anniversary. It is in fact the one
hundredth anniversary of the nomination of Abraham Lincoln for a second
term for the presidency on the Republican ticket. Two documents became
the blueprints for his life and his conduct. The first was the
Declaration of Independence which proclaimed the doctrine that all men
are created equal. The second was the Constitution, the preamble to
which began with the words:

We, the people...do
ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of
America.

These were the articles of
his superb and unquenchable faith. Nowhere and at no time did he more
nobly reaffirm that faith than at Gettysburg 101 years ago when he spoke
of "a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition
that all men are created equal."

It is to take us further
down that road that a bill is pending before us. We have a duty to get
that job done. To do it will require cloture and a limitation on debate
as provided by a standing rule of the Senate which has been in being for
nearly fifty years. I trust we shall not fail in that duty.

That, from a great
Republican, thinking in the frame of equality of opportunity -- and that
is all that is involved in this bill.

To those who have charged me
with doing a disservice to my party -- and there have been many -- I can
only say that our party found its faith in the Declaration of
Independence, which was penned by a great Democrat, Thomas Jefferson by
name. There he wrote the great words:

We hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

That has been the living
faith of our party. Do we forsake this article of faith, now that the
time for our decision has come?

There is no substitute for a
basic ideal. We have a firm duty to use the instrument at hand; namely,
the cloture rule, to bring about the enactment of a good civil rights
bill.

I appeal to all senators. We
are confronted with a moral issue. Today let us not be found wanting in
whatever it takes by way of moral and spiritual substance to face up to
the issue and to vote cloture.